And Call Me in the Morning
by slipstream
Summary: It's not like Don is doing this for fun, he reminds himself as the olive-skinned turtle makes up four fresh syringes and starts measuring out doses. He's his doctor and his brother, he only has Mikey's best interest at— He blinks, eyes suddenly fixed on the band of cloth fixed tight to Don's upper thigh. "Dude, what's wrong with your leg?" (pre Good Genes)


It's no secret that Mikey hates needles. Not that any of them actively _likes_ needles—the specters of capture and vivisection that that have haunted their nightmares since childhood see to that—but Leo reports for all injections with the grim punctuality of a leader setting a good example, and Raph isn't about to let Leo show him up with _anything_ related to blood, even if he's the first of them to hit the deck any time Don needs to top up their supply of stored O+. Mikey's just the only one willing to admit to his fear.

"C'mon, ya big baby!" Raph grunts, yanking hard at his ankle, but Mikey's got a good grip on the bed frame and his shell is just thick enough to make unwedging him from the gap beneath his bed difficult even _without_ active resistance. "D'ya want to die of tetanus? Because this is step one of dying of tetanus."

It takes a couple of hard kicks to the median nerve of Raph's elbow before Mikey manages to wrench his foot free. "This is _also_ step one of _not getting stabbed repeatedly with sharp things_. So I think I'll just sit tight and _not get stabbed repeatedly with sharp things_ , thank you very much."

"Michelangelo." Leo's command voice is tinged heavily with exhaustion. Not even he is immune to the the long nights they've been spending scouring the sewers for Bishop's mutants. "I'm not going to count to three. I'm going to chop your bed in half and drag you down to the lab by your toenails if necessary. How does that sound?"

" _Fine_ , fine." He squirms out from his hiding spot with a scowl. "And you could have just picked the bed _up_ , you know."

"Not nearly as much fun," Leo says, the ghost of a grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. He jerks his head towards the door. "The doctor will see you now."

Don is waiting for him in the corner of his lab that serves as their infirmary, perched on a rolling stool with a small tray of pre-prepped syringes laid out by the examination cot. Mikey averts his eyes immediately, forcing himself to look at the battered cabinets, the jars of gauze and clean cotton, the quick-reference charts of different medications and their dosing instructions Don made in case he was absent or incapacitated, the hodge-podge of reclaimed and repaired medical equipment waiting diligently to be called to service. Anything but the gleaming tubes of sinister neon liquid lined up like soldiers in a firing squad.

Compared to the sterile order of the sick bay, the rest of the lab is a much more homey disarray of clutter, the fruits of his brother's genius overflowing the worktops and spilling haphazardly across the floor. Most prominent amongst the piles are the skeletal prototypes of the exo-rigs he'd built to help them fight the seemingly endless waves of the mutant outbreak.

The grueling schedule of the last few weeks has been rough on them all, but Don looks especially bushed, his coloring dull and the shadows beneath his eyes dark as bruises. Smiling wearily, he pats the cot beside him. "Don't worry. This shouldn't take long."

"Right," Mikey snorts. "Every time you say that I end up stuck in here for _hours_ while you pump my blood full of drugs and then suck it all back out again. I'm not saying I prefer one over the other, but seriously, bro, make up your _mind_."

"No blood draws today," Don promises. Mikey experiences a brief thrill of relief, but then... "That's a week from now. Technically these vaccines are still in the experimental phase. With everything going on I haven't been able to put them through as many test rounds as I normally would when converting drugs from mammalian use, so I'll be doing periodic antigen counts on all of you to monitor their effectiveness."

"Nobody said I was signing up to be a guinea pig," Mikey complains, settling onto the cot with a sigh. "Raph made it sound like this was just a tetanus booster." Glancing sideways at the tray, he does a quick count. Three needles. He's a big turtle, he can handle three little—

Don slaps his forehead and pushes away from cot. "Shit, thanks for reminding me! You need to get one of those, too."

With deepening despair, Mikey watches Don roll his stool one-footed over to the glass-fronted medicine cabinet and start rummaging through its contents, narrating as he goes. "And I think you're due for the last of your Hep B series. Is it time for your meningococcal booster? I know it's not far off, might as well get it over with, too. And a flu shot never hurts. Who knows what kind of super-bugs these mutants are—"

By the time he rolls back to the cot—his return journey meandering slightly as his left leg acts as both engine and rudder, his arms loaded with vials and fresh box of needles and right foot hooked protectively around the footrest —Mikey has worked through the five stages of grief twice over in rapid succession and is now settling glumly into acceptance. It's not like Don is doing this for _fun_ , he reminds himself as the olive-skinned turtle makes up four fresh syringes and starts measuring out doses. He's his doctor and his _brother_ , he only has Mikey's best interest at—

He blinks, eyes suddenly fixed on the band of cloth fixed tight to Don's upper thigh. "Dude, what's wrong with your _leg?_ "

The ace compression wrap on Donatello's right leg, a more or less constant sight since he first got stung by that gross half-human, half-cockroach monster almost two months ago, is blotched with an odd, damp stain, dark in the center, feathering to yellow at the edges. Don looks down, then back up again, face flushing as he swivels on the stool to angle his body away from him.

"Nothing," he says quickly. Seizing the closest syringe with an uncharacteristic flourish, he yanks the cap off with his teeth and gestures impatiently. "Now c'mon, hold out your arm."

Mikey does so almost on reflex. He may not _like_ getting shots, but it's family law that in this space, all medical directives are to be followed immediately and without question. Don's grip is firm but not ungentle, and he slips the needle into the soft vein of skin between two scales on Mikey's shoulder with practiced skill. It hurts, but not enough to keep Mikey from seizing this opportunity to get a closer look at the leg Don's been favoring on and off for the past two months.

"Bullshit it's nothing, Don. You're _bleeding_." The sudden, sharp crackle of his own anger surprises him. "I was starting to think you were still wearing that thing 'cause you _liked_ it. Has that seriously not healed up yet?"

"I'm _fine_ ," Don insists, twisting further on the stool to toss the used needle into a nearby sharps container. "Part of the scab got torn off during training. Trust me, it's nothing you need to—"

Michelangelo does something he's admittedly not proud of.

He pinches Donatello on the thigh.

Honed by almost two decades of life alone with three older brothers, Mikey's lightning-quick pinches have always been brutally effective weapons, and this time is no different. Don slumps forward like a marionette with its strings cut, mouth frozen in a wordless howl of pain. Startled, Mikey just barely catches him by the rim of his shell as he does his level best to topple face-first onto the floor. When Don does find his voice again several heartbeats later the noise he makes is high and broken, more shuddered inhale than speech as his limp hands paw uselessly at the source of the pain.

"Sorry, sorry!" Victory bittered by regret, Mikey struggles to keep him upright on the precarious and uncooperative stool. "I didn't realize it was... Shit, Donnie! I'm so fucking—"

"It's okay," Don wheezes, limbs trembling and eyes glassy, and the blatant _lie_ of it all brings back some of Mikey's anger.

"Dude, it's so obviously _not_ okay! Who the fuck are you trying to kid?"

Don turns his head, still shaking, and doesn't answer. Mikey huffs in exasperation. It's not like this is the first time Don's been evasive about his own health, but _surely_ he knows how _dangerous_ it is to keep those kind of secrets in the middle of such an important mission. He knows the hurt he does not only to himself, but also the family, the _team_. Knows that sensei would adjust his training regimen to accommodate the injury, that Leo would be feverish in his formulation of new battle tactics that optimized the strength of three instead of four, that Raph himself wouldn't rest for as long as Don needed someone to wait at his bedside while he recovered, his growling presence a warning to patient and unwanted visitor alike.

He _knows_ that.

Right?

Michelangelo leans in, close enough to smell the faint odor of sickness radiating from his brother, sour beneath their usual stale cling of sweat that lingers no matter how diligently they clean their leather gear. Donatello tenses under the inspection but doesn't try to pull away. Carefully, carefully, as if trying to pet a skittish, wild creature, Mikey reaches out, brushes one hand across the top of the bandage. Feels the dampness of it, the heat. The way Don's carefully controlled breathing hitches upward briefly in panic.

"Don," he says, slow, soft. "It's _me_. If you can't tell me what's going on, who _can_ you tell?"

Still no answer. Mikey probes cautiously forward.

"Can I at least take a look at it?"

It's a long, silent minute before Don finally answers. "It's... pretty gross."

Not a yes, but not a no, either. "Have you _seen_ my room? I can totally handle gross."

This earns him half a smile and a shove. _Success_. "You _are_ totally gross."

"It's, like, my middle name. Or it would be, if I had one."

All joking aside, Mikey _is_ a little apprehensive about seeing exactly what's under the bandages. Whenever Don's out of commission, it's usually Splinter or Leo stepping in to play medic. Even Raph, who doesn't know jack about herbs and ancient healing chants, can sew a neat line of stitches in a pinch, plus his whole _you're-gonna-get-better-or-so-help-me-you're-gonna-regret-it_ approach to nursing that, while brutish, generally proves more or less effective.

Nobody goes to Michelangelo for doctoring.

 _Nobody_.

And yet...

Even if they _had_ a supply of latex gloves, it's not like any of them could effectively wear them. Don's set out a bottle of medical-grade hand sanitizer on the instrument tray, however; it'll have to do in lieu of a thorough washing for now, because no _way_ is Mikey getting up and risking him pulling a Houdini. The drying gel is cold on his hands as he reaches for the far edge of the bandage, or maybe it's just Don's skin that's flushed hot enough to burn.

Up close like this, Mikey doesn't understand how any of them haven't noticed how _swollen_ the limb has gotten, how tight and slick with fluids. Even with the dressings still in place, this close there's no denying the reek of infection. Was the change so gradual that they all just acclimated to it, like the frog in the slowly-bubbling proverbial saucepan? Or is just because it's _Don_ —their live in three-for-the-price-of-one Scotty, Bones, and Spock—that they've been content to let it pass under their radars, any niggling worries silenced by the assurance that Don knew more about it than they did, that he could take care of himself.

Even though he has a history of proving, over and over and over again, that no, he really _can't_.

Don bites his teeth around a hiss of pain as Mikey loosens the ace wrap and eases it down his leg to hang loose at his knee. The thick layer of gauze underneath is a Rorschach of brown blood stains, the largest of which stretches from the front of his thigh to nearly his hamstrings in the back. It's a good wrap job, but not a _great_ wrap job, above average but nowhere close to Don's usual textbook precision. The worried taste in Michelangelo's mouth takes on a sour, fluttery note.

There aren't any scissors within reach, so he's forced to ferret out the end of the gauze wrap and start undoing it by hand, like unwrapping the world's least wanted Christmas present. The stains on the white cloth grow bigger and brighter with each layer until they merge into a single, ominous continent. The last few loops are completely soaked through, slippery and dark pink between his fingers. Mikey's glad to be rid of them in the biohazard trash.

Beneath the mummy wrap of gauze is a large, rectangular sterile pad. Or rather, _once_ sterile. It's fully soaked as well, though there's still some hope yet that the dark yellow color peering through the red might be some sort of iodine soak. There's a tube sticking unpromisingly out from under the far end of the pad, the clear plastic bubbling with the dregs of a thin, yellow-orange liquid. Mikey knows better than to pull on it without knowing where it goes, and when he cranes his neck to get a better idea of the tube's path he finds a loop of tubing ending in a small, egg-shaped bulb half-full with fluid taped carefully to the outside of Don's leg.

Bracing himself for what is certain not to be a good time, Mikey peels back the last layer of the bandage.

"Holy _shit,_ Don! You said it was just a _nick!_ "

Where he was expecting a crusted-over puncture swollen by infection or a neatly-stitched but faintly seeping gash no longer than his palm, Mikey is instead confronted with a large, irregular _divot_ in his brother's thigh. Even packed with blood-soaked gauze, the surface of the would sits an alarming half inch beneath the olive of the surrounding skin, and the edges where visible are crusted with dark, heavily puckered tissue. The main body of the wound is roughly five inches long and two inches wide, round on one end and faintly tapered at the other, with a long and mostly-closed slice extending like the tail of a comet another four inches. The drainage tube disappears into the meat of Don's leg at the far end of the slice, and with a jolt of horror Mikey realizes that the crisp, surgical edges of the slice are almost certainly self-inflicted.

Don fidgets guiltily in his seat. Mikey's reminded of the way he used to squirm when caught directly disobeying Master Splinter, hands twisting and chin tucked low into his shell. It's a reaction their Sensei had carefully trained out of them ages and ages ago, such physical contriteness at odds with the ninja's occasional need to have their lies unquestioned by friend as well as foe. "It _was_ just a nick," he mumbles sourly.

"Well it's obviously moved on to the Museum of Medical Horrors Stage." There's a part of him—the same part that takes a big whiff whenever Raph gags over something he tripped over in the sewers and leans over the side of a building for a look whenever a Foot goon goes tumbling over the edge with a particularly satisfying _splat_ —that wants to touch the wound, wants to poke it and see what colors of puss will ooze out and whether he can handle looking at them without barfing. Luckily the more responsible part of him who's had to sit through, like, a _billion_ of Don's boring first aid lectures knows not to do so without at least a serious scrub-down beforehand. "Dude, how did it even _get_ to this point?"

Don studiously doesn't answer. He's got that tight-lipped, thousand-yard stare he likes to hide behind when physically barricading himself into his room isn't an option, the one that makes him look like a mildly constipated gargoyle. Mikey learned long ago that getting him to talk further when he's like this is next to impossible, so he sighs and switches tactics.

"Fine. Don't tell me. But I'm not leaving here until that sucker is cleaned out and re-bandaged. Even if I have to do it myself."

 _That_ at least catches Don's attention.

"Is that a threat?" he asks, one eye ridge raised and glancing significantly at the tray of needles. "Because you're not exactly in a position to make any of those."

"Not a threat," Mikey soothes. Judging by the way Don's shoulders hitch half a centimeter higher, he doesn't exactly believe him. "More an invitation to open trade negotiations. How about this: this is obviously going to get messy, so every time I go to wash my hands, you get to give me a shot. Deal?"

Don snorts and shakes his head. "You're getting your inoculations one way or the other, Mikey."

"Yeah, and I doubt you were gonna rock that nasty-ass bandage for all that much longer anyway. So what's there to lose for either of us?"

There's nothing Donatello hates more than a thoroughly logical counter to an argument he doesn't want to lose. He'll eventually concede—he's not so enamored with his own perceptiveness to think himself above error—but he's got a stubborn streak that can put Raphael's _and_ Leonardo's to shame any day of the week, so Michelangelo decides it's time to bring out the big guns.

"Or, since you're doing such a _stellar_ job looking after it on your own, I'll sit here all quiet like a good little turtle while you pump me full of experimental drugs, take my complimentary sucker, and then I'll go and have a nice long talk about all the things I've learned with Leo. And Raph. And Splinter. And _April_." Don's eyes go wide. Mikey leans forward, stare unblinking. "And _that_ ," he says, " _is_ a threat."

The infirmary is quiet but for the distant hum of the lab computers while Don processes. His surrender comes slowly and reluctantly. His shoulders seize up, then slump. The prominent tendons at his wrists spasm. His knees sag and fall open, revealing a slick patch of fluid that's been leaking unnoticed from the wound to pool on the stool's vinyl seat. He rubs roughly at his face, dislodging his mask just enough for Mikey to glimpse the dark, sunken rims of his eye sockets.

"The drainage tube needs to be emptied," he says dully. "Do you know how to do that?"

Terrified doubt briefly overtakes him, but Mikey forces himself to soldier on. "Nope," he answers honestly, careful to keep his tone light and nonchalant. "But a dude's gotta learn some time, right?"

There's no way he's letting Don give a repeat performance of his drunken schooner impression, so Mikey gathers up the needed supplies while Don transfers himself over to the cot and gingerly finishes unwinding the compression wrap. It's an odd moment, turning around and seeing his brother settling uncomfortably into the role of patient. The now-empty and freshly disinfected doctor's stool looms ominous and expectant, the neat stitches repairing its ripped vinyl seat seeming to frown at him with incredulous judgment from across the infirmary. Mikey deposits his armload of supplies and makes a hasty retreat back to the sink, where he spends longer than strictly necessary gathering his courage and scouring his arms up to the elbows with hot water and antibiotic soap.

Don has the second shot ready by the time he sits down. Mikey winces at the unexpected bloom of pain as Don depresses the plunger, the hot ache lingering deep in the muscle even as he pulls out and tosses the needle. Probably the tetanus booster, if Mikey's memories of the stiffness that lingered for nearly a week after his first one are anything to go by. Leave it to Donatello to express his displeasure at being forced to see to his own needs by giving him the most painful shot first.

"Thanks for sparing Lefty," he says, twisting open the bottle of cleansing solution.

"I should shoot all of these in your _ass_ ," Don grumbles. "Since you insist on being such a pain in mine."

"Hey, you've got five more to go, don't limit yourself just yet." With his aching right hand, Mikey reaches out and plucks gingerly at the edge of the soiled gauze, peeling it back with slow, careful deliberation. It comes away cleanly, revealing the faintly oozing wound bed, black and yellow slough shiny with white mucus ringing a raw tear half-crusted over with blood. Mikey can't help it. He gags and makes a face.

"Okay, I admit it," he says, staring down at the Picasso of healing and dying flesh. Looks like Don wasn't kidding about ripping it open during practice. "This is grosser than I anticipated."

The corner's of Don's mouth turn up in the world's smallest, smuggest grin.

"I did try to warn you," he says, bending forward to inspect the wound. "Believe it or not, this is the best it's looked in a while."

The way he says it—soft and casually dismissive—is obviously meant for Mikey's benefit, meant to reassure, to lessen, but it just winds the knot of worry in his chest all the tighter. Repositioning himself on the stool, he takes a calming breath and braces his "dirty" hand just above the glaring wound. "Hold still, this shit probably stings."

"It's _saline_ , Mikey, there's not enough salt in it _to_ —" Whatever point Don was about to make is lost in the sharp intake of breath as the cool fluid hits his fever-flushed skin. Mikey pours liberally, indifferent to the mess he's making of the sheets, dousing the wound surface again and again until the last of the filmy infection washes away.

"Looks like you've got some pink tissue starting to come in," he says with forced mildness, noting with dissatisfaction how small the patch of new, healthy skin is amidst the sea of nauseating yellows and browns.

"Don't get too excited," Don says. "I've lost track of how many times I've had to debride the whole thing."

Mikey shudders, all too familiar with the scrape of surgical steel cutting away dying flesh. "What about your wound drain?" He points at the spot where the plastic tubing disappears into the skin. "Am I gonna fuck something up if I flush it, too?"

Don shakes his head, lying back and rolling slightly so Mikey has easier access. "No, but after it's dry you'll need some alcohol wipes to clean the tube and bulb. And something to measure the fluid from the drain once you've dumped it out. "

"Right," Mikey says. He can't open the wipes one-handed and maintain a sterile field, so once he's done flushing and patting dry the base of the drain he pushes back from the cot and heads to the sink for his second hand washing. Don's gentler with this shot, at least.

"Leo's going to be so jealous," he jokes, catching the small well of blood with a wad of cotton and covering it with a Sleeping Beauty Band-Aid. "I told him we were all out of Disney Princesses."

"Sucks to be him." Mikey frowns at the end of the drain. "So how exactly does this thing work?"

"It's a Jackson-Pratt drain," Don explains. "You compress the bulb when you hook it up to the drain, and as it expands the suction pulls fluid from the incision site. Clean around the base of the tube first, then follow the tube down checking for kinks and blockages. There's a stopper at the top of the bulb where you can open it, kind of like a beach ball. Pop that open but don't touch the plug or the rim of the opening."

"Do I need to rinse the bulb out after emptying it?" Mikey asks, carefully following each of Don's directions to the letter.

"No. Just wipe the stopper and bulb down, then squeeze it before plugging the stopper back in. How much fluid is there?"

Mikey has to squint to read the tiny markings on the little beaker now filled with red-orange fluid. Don frowns in disappointment as he reports his finding.

"I don't understand. It's been almost a week, I should be seeing a reduction in drainage levels by now."

Mikey shakes his head as he dumps the fluid down the sink and sets the beaker aside to be sterilized later , astounded as always at his genius brother's occasional inability to see the forest for the trees. . "What _I_ don't understand is how you've been going out with your leg like this for two _months_. Y'know, since we live in a _sewer_ and all."

"I've _been_ keeping it clean," Don says in a low mutter. "I'm not an _idiot_."

With a sigh and a forlorn glance at the injections still awaiting him, Mikey once again starts the long, tedious process of scrubbing up to the elbow "So what's going on? I've seen you take a lot of hits, and you never take this long to heal up."

"Sharp prick," Don announces unnecessarily before jabbing the first of the experimental vaccines deep into his shoulder.

It doesn't ache the same way the tetanus shot had, but the injection leaves Mikey with an odd buzzing sensation that doesn't completely fade. Don shrugs apologetically as he shakes out the limb but offers no further commentary, his gaze distant but unshielded as he mulls over Mikey's question."

"I mean, it's certainly possible," he says at length, gaze locked on the steady, sure motions of Mikey's hands as he loosely packs the wound with wet gauze and arranges a double layer of dry gauze and sterile pads over top. This is one area of medicine in which all of them are extensively qualified. "Standard but consecutive infections, one clearing up just as another sets in. But I'm on enough broad-spectrum antibiotics to down a small rhino at this point. Then again as turtles it's not like we can just rule out MRSA. But maybe it's something from the sting itself, some mutated allergen that my body's been trying to fight off locally."

"Don't forget our little trip back in time," Mikey says. "That vacation in the land of unknown microbes couldn't have been good for you."

"Maybe," Don concedes with a sigh. "Not that it was doing all that great beforehand. Granted my protein intake hasn't been exactly optimal, but..."

With the drain and the edges of the sterile padding securely taped, Mikey tears open a fresh packet of gauze wrap with a frown. "What's protein got to do with it?"

Don shifts on the cot, lifts his leg up so Mikey can slip the first loop of gauze under his thigh. "It's an essential part of collagen formation, so you need it for optimal wound healing. And I, uh..." He trails off uncomfortably, cheeks flushed from something other than fever.

Mikey knows how to read between the lines. "You have a bad habit of not eating."

He'd intended for the comment to be neutral, but something in his tone seems to strike Don otherwise. "It's not like I do it on _purpose_ ," he says defensively. "I just get so busy that—"

"You forget," Mikey echoes hollowly, taping the end of the gauze wrap in place. "Yeah. I know." The words feel raw in his throat, unexpectedly heavy. He stares down at the ace wrap waiting in a lump at the far end of the cot. "This thing is filthy. I don't know why I didn't just chuck it to begin with."

Don wrinkles his nose in reluctant agreement. "Don't just yet, we're running short. Set it aside, I think I can wash and re-use it."

Mikey's hands tighten on the roll of medical tape.

"That's just it, isn't it, Donnie? You think you can do _everything_. That you _have_ to do everything."

Don pauses his examination of Mikey's wrap job long enough to roll his eyes. This is an argument he's an expert at deflecting. "No, I don't."

"Oh yeah?" Mikey laughs. He gestures jerkily at the lab and all its contents looming behind him. "The fuck's all this then? Your quilting circle's cast-offs?"

Don bristles, fingers dug deep into the cot's white sheets. "It's important. What I'm doing."

"Sure it is. We need that junk to fight monsters and decode alien sludge and track subterranean cults and not freeze to death every winter. But you know what's probably a _billion_ times _more_ important? _You_."

Donatello goes very, very still.

"What did you just—?"

"You're _important_ , Donnie. You're, like, the _most_ important. Not your weapons or your vaccines or all the other crap you bang out in here." He sucks in a long breath, unnerved by the utterly blank expression on his brother's face. "I mean, you _know_ that, right? And someday, you're gonna have to learn how to take care of yourself _first_ , because I don't know what we'd do without you."

"I—" Don shudders, closes his eyes. Opens them again. Swallows. "You'd—"

His mouth spasms around the end of the sentence, garbling the remainder of the thought. Mikey can't stand it any longer. He leaps into action.

"What are you doing?" Don gasps, as soon as he has breath again enough to speak.

Mikey doesn't answer immediately, too alarmed by the quivering of the flesh pressed tight against his own, the icy clamminess there a sharp contrast to the unnatural heat lurking deep in his leg. "Don't worry," he says, burying himself further into the hug. "It's medicinal."

Don laughs, a short, empty bark of air that cracks painfully next to Mikey's ear slit.

"Don't mock me," he says warningly. "I'm on the stool, that makes me the doctor, okay?"

He expects a fight, expects Don to jokingly demand a second opinion at the very least, but Don says nothing. Does nothing.

"You're _important_ ," Mikey repeats. "Donnie. You're _so_ important. You are. _You_. So, so, _so_..."

Don chokes in his arms, sobs. Shakes, and shakes, and shakes.

They stay like that for a long, long time, Michelangelo rocking the two of them back and forth, his constant stream of reassurances rising and falling with the sounds of Donatello's gasping as he struggles between surrender and control. Despite his best efforts, Mikey's mind starts to wander. Even with one final post-bandaging hand wash, he still has two more injections to go. He wonders if he can convince Don to put one off until after dinner in honor of their agreement. Or maybe there's something to be said for getting it all over with in one swoop, for confronting a feared pain in the shared now instead of kicking it down the road to be faced alone in some unknown future.

He doesn't know what's going through Donatello's head, isn't sure he could fully understand even if he did. But that doesn't mean he won't try. So he rocks, and rocks, and whispers, until finally, finally, his brother calms. For a while, all is quiet in the hushed, harshly lit infirmary.

"Hey doc?" Don croaks.

"Yeah?"

"Not to criticize your treatment plan, but..." He lets out a long, shuddering breath. "I'm not sure how a hug is supposed to fix my leg."

The hollow, joking tone pangs heavily in Mikey's chest. Adjusting his grip, he clings all the tighter.

"You're right," he says. "Better take two instead."


End file.
